A massive natural gas find off in China could be enough to power the country’s demand for two years.
China National Petroleum Corp the country’s biggest oil and natural gas producer, made the huge discovery at a prospect in the southeastern province of Sichuan.
The find, in Anyue county, has a reserve of 440 billion cubic meters, of which 308 billion cubic meters is technically recoverable, the firm said.
A testing well at the site has produced as much as 1.1 million cubic meters of natural gas a day, CNPC said in the statement. Production facilities being built at the site will help raise output to as much as 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year.
China, which consumed 169 billion cubic meters of gas in 2013, is looking to make greater use of natural gas to replace coal in the fight against air pollution which is blighting major cities such as Beijing and Tianjin.
The find is “a big boost to CNPC and PetroChina, as a new discovery of this scale can bring huge profit, once commercial production starts,” said Shi Yan, an analyst with UOB-Kay Hian Ltd. in Shanghai.
“It will help strengthen China’s energy security as high output means less dependence on imports.”
China imported 53 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2013, or 32 percent of its total consumption, according to CNPC’s research institute. The country has around 3trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, according to latest figures – enough to last for almost 29 years.
